Adultery, Stonings, Compassion, and Redemption

Adultery, Stonings, Compassion, and Redemption

Article excerpt

A Christian Science perspective.

The front page of The London Times displayed the headline,
"Outrage over Iran's plan to stone woman to death" (July 8). Sakineh
Mohammadi Ashtiani's 22-year-old son is risking everything to alert
the human rights campaigners to his mother's plight. She was charged
with committing adultery. In response to international outcry, the
sentence to stoning has been rescinded, at least for now.

Nine years ago this month, Maryam Ayoubi, an Iranian mother of
three, was stoned to death in Tehran, convicted of adultery as well
as murder.

I was born in Iran, and the recent news of Ms. Ashtiani moved me
to pray. As I prayed, I realized that in many ways, Christ Jesus was
a campaigner and activist. Yet it was not so much human rights that
he championed but that he lifted thought beyond the human situations
to the divine consciousness of Love, in which there is no limitation
to the love that God has for all His sons and daughters. God's love
is unconditional.

Jesus showed the Christ - the tangible love of God for humanity -
to all of us by his example. That compassion moved beyond barriers
of human limitations. John's Gospel records an account of a woman
being caught in the act of adultery. Jesus stood between the woman
and the people, who believed they had a right to stone the woman
according to Mosaic law.

That account is, I think, one of the most beautiful stories of
the Gospels. It illustrates love acted out, right out from its
source, which is divine. As the New International Version
translates, "If any one of you is without sin," Jesus told them,
"let him be the first to throw a stone at her." With that, everyone
left.

This story says a lot about the compassion of Jesus. Most
wonderful of all is how he treated the woman. Jesus gave her a whole
new start; he enabled her to turn over a new page and live life from
a wholly different standpoint. He forgave her and set her free to be
transformed. …